Sunday, November 30, 2008

It's been an excellent few days off, this Thanksgiving Day. I hope your's went as well.

I came across this and thought it was cool enough to spread around. It is called Its A Wonderful Internet. The story is a retooling and modernization in the style of like 'The Night Before Christmas' and 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas', except that the INTERNET disappears. *shock* *horror*. The narrator has a great voice. I recognize it...I think its car commercial voice over guy. anyone know his name? Anyway, its just fun, interactive story telling.

Monday, November 24, 2008

I am really F'ing busy right now so to keep you all entertained, I will share a joke. The joke comes from my mom's Uncle Johnny. After he died we found pages and pages and pages of very well handwritten jokes. Most are dirty. lot's are not. many are one lines. The amount is astounding. Uncle Johnny was a tank driver in WW2. When he got back to the real world I guess this was a coping mechanism.

Hey Ed, did you hear? My new girlfriend is a professional thief. You should see her snatch.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

My mother told my father to get a doctor (see why here) but instead he brought a woman who he said was just like a doctor. The woman reassured my mother that she had mended many a broken arm and leg and that she knew what to do.The woman (I don't know her name) came into my room and began to examine my arm, her findings as told to my mother was that my arm was sprained and that there is nothing to worry about. She then proceeded to pull on the arm and I passed out with pain.After that horrible ordeal, I begged my mother not to have that woman pull my arm again. The woman had the gall to tell my mother that I was faking and that she had to pull the bone sockets into place. Upon hearing her reply to my mother, I began to scream and beg my mother to send the woman away.I thanked God that she did send her away, because I don't think my little heart could have taken that much fear and pain again.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The hot news of late has been the bailout talks the 'big three' auto companies, Ford, GM and Chrysler are having with the Feds. I just want to throw out some of my SlingShot Thoughts on the subject and get to the main reason for writing tonight.

First: They auto companies asking for $25,000,000,000 dollars. And that is just a bridge loan to cover a short term deficit. If there was one thing we should have learned lately is that things always cost more than twice as much as the original request. I point to the banking and finance bail out and the cost of the Iraq war as two points.

Second: They are claiming 2.5 million jobs could be lost. Using the same logic above I will say that really only 1.25 million jobs would be lost in the short term.

Third: You fuckin' jerk off CEOs. Fly 30 million dollar private jets, costing $20,000 for the trip to beg the government crying poor mouth. FUCK YOU GUYS! That's like, what, going to the welfare office wearing a new suit and gold chains.

Fourth: I say let 'em falter on their own. It was their poor business and management practices. They are not producing products the people want. It's no ones fault but their own. Own up, BITCHES!

Ok. The real rant. GM is pushin' out the Chevy Volt. It goes a whole 40 miles on batteries. whooooo. (if you didn't hear my sarcasm, read that again) 40 miles and the car while, granted LOOKS really cool, is going to cost (according to some reports) like $40,000. This one more perfect reason why they can't sell anything. Who the frig has 40-grand for a car that only goes 40 miles?

My mom sold a Toyota Tercel to a guy who DIY electric car that easily does 20 miles for 5 grand. HERE. This guy got half the range for way less cash.

I'm just blabbering and complaining. With all their resources GM should have a car out, next year, that is getting 300 miles on battery power alone and cost 20-grand. This is the 21st century for christsakes. I mean really we are less than 60 years from when we are all supposed to be living like George Jetson and I can't even get a flying car over here.

It's just aggravating that the car companies are not held responsible for thier actions and that the government isn't pushing for great things. Maybe Obama will put out a Kennedy-esqe man on the moon, electric car in every driveway. However the more I see that news the less and less Mr. Change is bringing in the ol'Cliton gang. So disappointing.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

What a miserable dreary day the weather gods have spread across the land today. Wife and I started feeling cramped in and needed to get out, But what to do? what to do? The only thing we really could without driving and hour or more...we went to Target.

We arrived in the parking lot and LilGuns shits him self and gets hungry right away. At 7 weeks this kid is chugging a 4-7 ounce bottle every two hours. WTF gonna happen when he's 13? Anyway, wife jumps into the back seat and fed him. Then we laid the front car seat down like a changing table to swap out his diaper.Wife: " Here hold this and throw it out when we get inside." meaning the mustard shit filled diaper.Me: doe-dee-doe "ok." I had to piss like a race horse anyway, so the bathroom was my first move and I could toss it there. So, I fold up the diaper really carefully and stick it in my pocket.And then we shop. l.e.d christmas lights, wrapping paper, boob pads...all kinds of shit.2hours later we are driving home and I stick my hand in my pocket..."oh jezzes.. whats' thi...oh no!' I pull out the diaper. i forgot all about it and it now had leaked pee and yellow poo of course. inside my jacket pocket. Now im holding it. awesome. so gross. and without any better option I put it back in my pocket.Luckily having dogs has desensitized me to some gross things with poo and dog shit stinks WAY worse, so I was able to keep myself under control and get straight home. I'm sure this will not be the last gross thing that happens. Probably this was just the first really good one.Hey whatcha gonna do? I mean really...just look at him?

Monday, November 10, 2008

It was about 1:30pm on Saturday afternoon. I had just finished a trip to the dump and off loaded trash from the past month. Baby shit diapers, by the way, are surprisingly heavy. Here's a vid from August I made when I didnt have any recycling and had to 'go upta the landfill'. I love the dump.

Afterward I drove over to the Humong-o-mart needing some low cost dog bones and after dodging the blue-hairs in their silver ford escorts I found a parking spot. As I moved from the truck, I noticed a live .410 shotgun shell sitting on the light post base. Sketchy I think as I put the shell into my truck. But I did have the .40 on my hip so if some nutjob decided to make shit hit the fan I would have some good solid defense...and maybe a human shield or two. just kidding about the human shield.

I braved the crowds, dodged the stereotypes and vigilantly entered. As I strolled over to my section I saw them from a distance. A nice set of boobies in a low cut shirt giving me a cleavage show like no other. There they were. Then I look to her right and see the dad pushing a carriage with a small baby. I look back...Milk Boobies, nice. I crack a smile, I move on. Then two minutes later the exact same thing with another woman. What is the point of this? Nothing except the poetic statement that I text messaged to my brother and friends "I have a new love of breasts heavy with milk."

Thursday, November 06, 2008

and it's not just any rock. It is actually the most common rock in the mantle. It is also the birthstone for August, peridote. Now, lets see if I can simplify this....

Recently these two rock docs, geologist Peter Kelemen and geochemist Juerg Matter have conducted studies on this rock and it's ability to absorb (react actually) carbon dioxide. They took the process another step and figured out a method to speed up the reaction rate by 100,000 times or more. The method involves drilling holes into the peridoitie and injecting the rock formation with really hot water and pressurized CO2. I presume that the H2O and CO2 will react with the chemical composition of the peridotite (like: magnesium, iron, oxygen, silicon, aluminum, sodium, potassium).

This is big news for the battle against anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere, which has been shown to be increasing for many years. This graph (the keeling curve) is perhaps the most well know and convincing evidence.The study our hero rock docs have coming out on November 11 in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences will, I presume, layout in more detail the findings of the study and calculations on storage capacities and costs and all that shit. In the web-articles I have found, they are saying that as much as 4 to 5 billions tons per year will be able to be stored. Humans are currently spewing about 30 billion tons each year, so the amount of capture is significant.

I've done a previous post on carbon trapping before, HERE. That method involved pumping the CO2 in to really deep (many kilometers) aquifers. This has the potential issues of leakage, pH, stabilization and doesn't provide the same extreme long term storage solution that peridodite storage does. The peridotite storage, insofar as I can tell, is a chemical reaction with a crystal (calcite) as the resulting permanent storage device.

from that earlier post I wrote, standby and add:

Carbon Capture and Storage SlingShot Thoughts:

We have to try. This echos' my thoughts on geoengineering in general (1,2,3,4).

We have less than 50 years to turn this Carbon ship around. More like 1 year.

It is VERY unlikely that the coal fired plants will be retrofitted with CS facilities within 50 years.

The human effect on the atmosphere in undeniable.see Keeling Curve.

The Earth has great natural carbon sinks. Like the oceans and trees and now peridodite.

Humans are overwhelming the system.

Carbon sequestration can work but it is only a small part of the solution. Alternatively- we will probably need multiple methods, perhaps geographical.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

I have had a few Slingshot Thoughts floating around in my head recently and I figure I got enough of them built up that it is time to let ‘em loose.

Regarding the economy and money

(1) To protect your 401 K, pull it all out and transfer it into Second Life’s Lindens.There is actually exchange rate kicking around and stock market. People are spending real money on virtual items ranging from horned helmets to property and homes.Since the whole community/ world is virtual it should somehow be shaded from the real world economy. Then take it all back out when the DJA swings up again.

(2) The US Treasury Department has been bitching about how expensive it has become to mint coins, Pennies especially.So how about we just out source the production of coins to China?We seem to be sending everything else that way, and if it costs less, it costs less. Right?However, I'm sure there must be some federal law to squash this brilliant idea.

President Elect ObamaFirst 2 weeks, speak with the leader of every nation on earth, even if just to say ‘Sup dude?’

A Mission to MarsI think that as humans we must attempt this.To do it I think we send three identical ships with teams of experienced Navy sub-mariners to set up a colony. However, the first real step would be to have a working magnetic shield to protect them from deep space radiation.No need to send them there only to return looking like Morlocks.